


Cards on the Table

by wildenessat221b



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst, Biblical References, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Female-Presenting Crowley (Good Omens), Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Garden of Eden, Humor, Hurt Crowley, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Crowley (Good Omens), M/M, and suchlike, because timeline trickery, crowley being emo about freddie mercury, crowley being good with children, crowley is soft for warlock, crowley thinking ducks are cool, op shoves every crowley hc she has ever enjoyed into one fic, sometimes, who deserves love, yet also
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24899038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildenessat221b/pseuds/wildenessat221b
Summary: Over six-thousand or so years, Crowley and Aziraphale have developed rather a collection of weird and wonderful items.Over six-thousand or so years, humans have developed rather colourful imaginations.Over a kitchen table in the Sussex Downs, a bet is made.Or, Crowley and Aziraphale send a box of items to a museum to see if they can guess their origins. As humans often do, they get it spectacularly wrong.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 73
Collections: Good Omens





	Cards on the Table

Official protocol was to call Vincent whenever deliveries arrived, but Warren had always felt that “protocol” was merely a word attached to getting in the way of a prospective job well done. Besides, the courier had the skittish, weasel-like manner of one who has a billion and one things she and her greasy, dishwater blonde ponytail should be doing at that very moment; he wouldn’t wish waiting around for Vincent to decide that his Twinings Earl Grey had proven itself competent at stewing and could be trusted to finish the job on its own on _anyone_.

He signed on the dotted line and produced the closest thing to a smile that his stern face (inherited from Grandpa Greg, he was told – all he remembered of Grandpa Greg was the vague impression of a cartoonish mustache that looked as though it might run off any moment) was capable of. The package was heavy, rattled on the slightest of movements, and had a musty, antique smell that not even the Olympic running track’s worth of duct tape coiled around it could disguise.

It was quite a task to get it into the basement – his somewhat modest stature disallowed him from being able to properly see over the top, and his somewhat modest upper body strength disallowed him from conducting his mostly blind stumbling through the catacomby lengths of the buildings with anything resembling grace. When he finally deposited it on the workbench, it was with a disgruntled huff (second nature to him, actually, but in this rare case, appropriate) followed by a ginger brushing down to rid himself of invisible dust motes. He supposed he should call Vincent – if he did it now, he’d make it down before the sun set. (It was eleven thirty in the morning and approaching the summer solstice.)

While technically accurate to say that Vincent worked at the museum, in practical terms, it was incorrect to do so on two counts.

Firstly and perhaps more whimsically, Vincent gave the impression of being an extra appendage of the museum rather than an employee. His attire - never cravat-less, always anything-manufactured-after-the-year-1902-less – appeared to carry with it a sort of vague paranoia that he may, at short notice, be required to stand in for one of the exhibits. There was an equal timelessness to the non-material aspects of his appearance. His dark skin was somehow weathered without being wrinkled, his deep brown eyes wise but unclouded by tell-tale cataracts. He walked with an old-wordly grace (he didn’t actually carry a cane, but nine out of ten people you asked would tell you that he did and be entirely sure of themselves) that was frayed somewhat at the edges – frayed by a distinctly modern slouch of the shoulders or hand shoved into a pocket. He always seemed to be around just as a tourist in a little yellow bucket hat formulated an impenetrable question, with a satisfying (if occasionally creative, by necessity) answer on the tip of his tongue.

Secondly and significantly less whimsically, Vincent never actually appeared to do any work. He was seen to do a lot of the things most people did _between_ work – making tea, thumbing his way through newspapers, wrinkling his nose at BBC Radio 4, casting a curious eye over the exhibits – but the only person who ever claimed to have seen him so much as in the same room as a filing cabinet (a pair of words which appeared at least fourteen times on his official job description, which he couldn’t tell you the name of if he tried. It probably contained “human” “merchandise” “manager” “surveyor” and “quality” and was probably produced by throwing darts at a darts board after a not insignificant number of bloody Marys) was Doreen from the café, who was so close to blind that it could just as well have been the Crown Prince of Sweden. (Although as far as anyone knew, Vincent _was_ the Crown Prince of Sweden.)

Warren considered himself a sensible man. The kind of sensible man who enjoyed sensible things like cheese sandwiches and golf and University Challenge. As well as being these kinds of sensible, he was also, novelly, _actually s_ ensible, and recognised the merits of recycling, eating only modest amounts of meat and treating all human beings like human beings. Warren’s version of treating human beings like human beings however, was treating them with a mild sense of irritation and non-discriminatory suspicion. Hence, he was wary of Vincent and had been from the start.

The dial tone had the good grace to sound rather disgruntled as it rang out.

“Vincent Wetherbury, how may I be of assistance?”

There were actually two Vincents who worked at the museum, but the use of his last name was entirely superfluous. Even Vincent Holloway himself, in all his lanky, ginger-haired glory, pictured the other Vincent when the name was said.

“Vincent, it’s Warren, from the records department, we’ve just had a –“

“Warren, how lovely! Lord, I was just thinking about you this morning, how’s your sister’s knee?”

Vincent, against the convention of untruth when one normally says “I was just thinking about you this morning,” actually had been thinking about him, and his sister’s knee, having overheard him ordering her a support band on the phone two weeks ago. He had a lot of time for thinking about people. That morning, he’d also thought about Darren’s fledgling e-Sports career, Janine’s sickly tabby cat and Gavin’s foray into vegetarianism.

“Yeah, s’fine, whatever, listen, we’ve just had a delivery – new exhibit, or not if its codswallop, if you could come down and have a look.”

“Ah, an investigation is on the horizon, how wonderful. Be down in a jiffy!”

“Alright, see you in a,” Warren quirked his eyes to the empty room, “Jiffy.”

“Ta-ta!”

The line cut out.

A jiffy, at least, was a great deal shorter than a Vincent moment, and a blink of an eye to a Vincent “two shakes of a rabbit’s tail.” Still, Warren knew he’d have a little time before he had company, so he set himself to extracting some of the duct tape from the package. It came away in spools (he loved the sound of duct tape coming away from cardboard, it was a good, sensible, working man’s pleasure) and pooled like a bird’s nest beside the box.

With the absence of tape, the smell of antiquity was even stronger. He lifted one of the flaps and peered inside. Frowned.

“What in the world..?”

\---

Six weeks later, the _Museum of Antiquity and Curiosity_ opened five new exhibits.

An angel and a demon were first in line.

\---

_~_

_A note to the receiver:_

_To Whom It May Concern,_

_Please find enclosed a collection of items of historical significance, for which I am able to provide little context. I have made my career as a humble bookseller, remaining confined for some length of time to a modest little corner Soho. However, when one works in Soho, one hears things, one meets people and sometimes, such people impart gifts._

_The items I have enclosed appear, to my untrained eye, to be of a deeply historical nature. I felt, therefore, that the hands of the “Museum of Antiquity and Curiosity” were far more appropriate than my own. It is my hope that your expertise will be able to shed some much desired light on the nature of these gifts._

_My companion and I look forward to visiting some time in the not so distant future to see what you have discovered about these items._

_Kind Regards,_

_A.Z. Fell_

~

Crowley turned the handwritten note over in his fingertips and smirked. Aziraphale gave him an expectant smile.

Wordlessly and still smirking, Crowley beckoned towards the fountain pen that lay in front of Aziraphale on the kitchen table. (It was one of the many items of furniture that they’d kept when they’d bought the cottage, for quaintness’ sake, which Crowley abhorred the notion but loved the realisation of. Now however, it was self-cleaning.) Aziraphale passed it over with a suspicious frown. By the time it had changed hands, it was a Bic biro, at which Crowley was both mildly offended and relived.

Aziraphale continued frowning as Crowley scrawled on the empty space at the bottom, peering over his sunglasses with a smile that was far too innocent. He passed the note over.

An addition had been made to the bottom:

~

_TLDR:_

_here’s some shite for you to play detectives with_

_me and my demon bf were having a clear out_

_xoxo_

_renegade angel, excellent shag_

~

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and made a sweeping motion in the air with his hand. The five lines disappeared. Crowley shrugged.

“You have to admit it was more concise.”

“ _You_ have to admit it was deeply crude. And the bit about my sexual prowess anything but concise – entirely surplus to requirements.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Crowley reclined in his chair and flung his feet onto the table, ankles clicking loudly, “If these people want an accurate picture of you.”

Aziraphale didn’t justify this with an answer, but also didn’t _not_ smile. He sipped at his tea, pinky finger raised primly, and drummed his fingers on the table.

“I thought that _not_ having an accurate picture of the owner of these items was rather the point of this little experiment. How long do you think we should give them?”

Crowley shrugged. “A while.”

“A decade? Two?”

Crowley scoffed. “You’re not great with human lifespan stuff are you.”

Aziraphale, eyebrows knitted together, was transparently unsure of what was so funny. Crowley rolled his eyes. The gesture was obscured by his glasses, but his demeanour implied it heavily too.

“I say six months. To work out what they need to work out, do whatever it is _you_ think they’re going to do –“

“Yes, speaking of which,” Aziraphale pushed the tea set to the side and reached for a second set of paper. As soon as the pen was in his hand again, it was a fountain pen. “What exactly is the bet? I want it in writing for continuity.” (He had, of course, meticulous records dating back to the seventeenth century of every book he’d ever sold, and the habits of a continuity lover died hard. Naturally though, his task of keeping a record of every book he’d ever sold was made significantly easier by the fact that he’d only ever sold a dozen books and eight of them were to his own alter-egos.)

Crowley allowed himself a moment to sit back in his chair and smile. “Look at me and my demonic influence. Couple of centuries ago you wouldn’t dared have even thought about _thinking about_ the word ‘bet’.”

Aziraphale wafted his hand in the air fussily. “Yes, yes, aren’t you a wile. Fax Lord Beelzebub for a pat on the back.”

Crowley wrinkled his nose at both ‘fax’ and ‘Lord Beelzebub.’ But mostly at ‘fax’, he was pleased to note. Neither heaven nor hell had given them the merest iota of jip since their little body-swapping trick, now merely a foggy whisper of a breath on the great expanse of windowpane that was their lives.

Aziraphale, pen held aloft and slick with ink but _miraculously_ not dripping, gave him an expectant look. He blinked, then shook off the thought.

“Right, bet, yeah,” he pursed his lips, then spoke in the solemn voice of one reciting their will. “I, Crowley –“

“I, Anthony J Crowley…”

“ _I, Crowley,_ hereby…” he clicked his teeth, “…reckon, that humans are a great deal more imaginative and a bloody enormous deal with bells on more _stupid_ … than my… renegade, excellent shag angel partner gives them credit for.”

Aziraphale pouted a little as he wrote, then turned the sheet of immaculate cursive around so that Crowley could see it.

Crowley quirked his eyebrows and nodded approvingly. “Verbatim? Nice.”

“For legal purposes, of course.”

“Oh, of course.”

He drew a line beneath Crowley’s statement and began to pen his own.

“I, Aziraphale –“

“Former Principality of the Eastern gate, accomplished sword-loser –“

“ _I Aziraphale,_ formally declare it to be my belief that human beings are more inherently rational and intelligent than my companion believes them to be.”

He signed it with a flourish, then handed it to Crowley, who did the same. (Flourish included.) Within a beat of a hummingbird’s wing, the note had found its way, along with the parcel, to the Royal Mail.

“And now we wait,” Crowley said, smiling.

“Indeed.”

\---

**Artist Unknown, (c.1870)**

**Acrylics on parchment**

**Piece is in the Impressionist style and appears to depict two figures embracing in a garden. Some critics have speculated that the garden in question is the Biblical Eden, but this is unconfirmed. Curiously, despite the apparent age of the piece, there are some distinctly modern notes. The female figure, for example, seems to be wearing sunglasses.**

\---

c.2010 CE, An Undisclosed Official Residence, England. 

It was a damp day, with an overcast sky offset by the threatening rumble of storm clouds that never quite burst their banks, and Warlock Dowling was sitting at the kitchen table, colouring with his Nanny.

Although “colouring” wasn’t quite the right word. What he was actually doing was slathering vast quantities of very expensive acrylic paint onto swathes of very expensive parchment, sometimes with his fingers, sometimes (and this had earned him immense praise from Nanny, of course) with his father’s toothbrush. Thaddeus Dowling was in for some dental unpleasantness when he came back from America, Nanny thought smugly. Whenever that was likely to be, she thought sadly.

The paints and parchment had, of course, been bought for Warlock by Nanny herself, out of her own wages. If Harriet Dowling ever stopped to think about it, she’d probably deem it odd that Ashtoreth, who slept in the Staff accommodation and worked every hour God sent, had so much spare income to throw around (and to spend on clothes – she would simply have to ask her where she got her snakeskin kitten heels from). But Harriet Dowling never stopped to think about much other than whether her husband’s brief visits to the family Undisclosed Official Residence would coincide happily with their marriage counsellor’s appointment times.

Nanny, contrarily to most childcare experts (which her CV professed her to be, if anyone had bothered to read it. She had both a level three and four BTEC in Childcare, which apparently meant Something to Someone) felt that indulging a child’s whims with expensive gifts was the best way to enrich their learning and cognitive skills.

How is a child supposed to learn to solve complex mental puzzles without a top of the range tablet computer, for example? Complex mental puzzles such as how best to get a camel through the eye of a needle.

Brother Francis, of course, felt quite the opposite, and expressed in his broad West Country drawl (which came across as a little exaggerated even to Warlock’s six year old ears – Nanny hadn’t raised him to be _stupid_ ) his belief that people should live modestly and avoid excess, and children should play with things like hoops and sticks. (It was worth noting that Aziraphale had spotted a child playing with a novelty hoop and stick outside the East Sussex childhood museum in the late 1990s and had been rather oblivious to the ‘novelty’ part.)

(It was also worth noting that Crowley had been whispering threats to the begonias just behind the adjacent hedge during this particular one of Aziraphale’s lessons. “Enjoying your modest dinner?” he’d asked at the Ritz that night, before clicking his fingers with a mischievous smile and turning the Waigu steak on Aziraphale’s plate to bread and the Burgandy in his glass to water. He would have gone one step further and made his Saville Row suit look a whole lot more like a potato sack, but the glare Aziraphale was casting him was capable of making the sky fall in, and he rather worried that if he _had_ gone one step further, _it would have_.)

So, Warlock’s bedroom was well stocked with both animatronic animals that talked back and animals fashioned from leaves and sticks, toy aeroplanes could probably have got you across the Atlantic (with a bit of willpower and perhaps a glued on garden chair) and toy aeroplanes folded out of newspaper.

Either way though, Warlock didn’t feel especially spoiled by the expensive paints – to a six-year-old, paint is just paint. At least he was doing a tremendous job of making a dreadful mess, Nanny Ashtoreth reasoned. One point to the forces of darkness – should balance out Brother Francis’ lecture about the merits of hair conditioner nicely.

She hadn’t been paying a whole lot of attention to Warlock’s artistry, mind embroiled in far more diabolical things (it had been the Eurovision song contest the night before. There were some distinctly familiar faces among Iceland’s entry. At least presumably they were faces). She jumped slightly when Warlock slammed his grubby hands down on the table with a pout.

“I’m done, Nanny. And bored.”

Nanny quirked her eyebrows and nodded. “Can’t have that now can we, my little hellion.”

He shook his head vigorously in marked agreement. She took his hand – it was fine, she wouldn’t get dirty – and began to lead him away from the table, when the picture caught her eye. She clicked her teeth and cleared her throat, to muffle the undignified surprised squeak that had almost fallen out of her mouth.

“What have you painted, dear?” she asked, with what she hoped was a neutral smile.

Warlock shrugged.

“You.”

Nanny Ashtoreth peered at the painting. It was unmistakably her, sunglasses covering her eyes, hellfire-deep red hair, draped in dark clothing. But she wasn’t alone. Close to her – very close indeed and good _lord,_ the kid had only bloody drawn them _hugging –_ was another figure. This figure was pale and soft looking, with blonde (alright, yellow actually, _very_ yellow) hair. They were surrounded by vibrant greens (all twelve greens that came in the set) and deep reds and blushing pinks and sombre purples.

“It’s you and Brother Francis. In that garden where you said you met.”

Nanny blinked beneath her glasses.

“Oh.”

“Look. That rabbit’s scared of you.”

You had to look closely but it was, mouth agape in a little red blobby scream. Nanny Ashtoreth was utterly touched.

“Oh.” She repeated. The painting had dried _far more quickly_ than it could reasonably be expected to. She picked it up carefully. “Do you mind if I show Brother Francis?”

Warlock shrugged again and wiped his hands on his cashmere jumper, staining it a horrible muddy brown.

And that was that.

\---

“I thought we said no miracles to throw them off the scent.” Aziraphale huffed with a pout. He straightened his back primly. “Really, Crowley.”

Crowley smiled down at the little painting, encased in glass.

“Miracle my arse,” he smirked. “Ran a teabag over it to make it look old, s’all.”

He went silent for a moment, and it was the sort of silent you can hear. Aziraphale peered at him questioningly.

“Warlock did it once for a school project.”

The mist that had formed across his eyes was hidden by his glasses but Aziraphale saw it anyway and said nothing.

\---

**Amulet, (c.1500)**

**Depicts a snake curled around a weapon. Charm and chain are silver, eyes amber. Both genuine. May have been used to ward off evil spirits, or perhaps to attract them.**

\---

1989, A Nondescript Road, East Germany.

East Germany was cold all the time, but in a Trabi, one may as well have been in an industrial freezer (which the country had a lot of actually, although they didn’t do a whole lot of freezing). Aziraphale reasoned sympathetically that the heater was probably also functioning as the engine, radio and brake pedal, in rather the same way that one's other organs begin performing the stomach's role when it gives up after a large meal. His did anyway, not that he had organs in the conventional sense.

Angels were actually rather good drivers. They were very good at checking their blind spots, having the uncanny ability to allow eyes to manifest wherever they needed to be. They used the slow lane when necessary and (marked themselves out as if-not-not-human-certainly-a-bit-bloody-odd by using) the overtaking lane to overtake. They were adept parallel parkers and received an automatic commendation on their first successful three-point turn. They all had commendations.

Unfortunately, Aziraphale was not in a time nor place where being a good driver was an advantage. Aziraphale was in a time and place where being a good driver got you rear ended by a red faced maniac in a transit van who yells profanity at you out of the window as he speeds away with his middle finger raised. Aziraphale did so hate to break with tradition, so he did exactly that.

The Trabi made a noise like a cat that was both disgruntled that it was dying and rather excited about the prospect, and shuddered to a halt. Aziraphale huffed and rolled his eyes, in the process making sure that anyone who wanted to use that particular stretch of road any time soon would find themselves diverted. Somewhere nice, he hoped, but he had to admit to himself that the choices weren’t wonderful.

Really, _field work_ , he found himself scoffing for about the thousandth time that week as he stepped out of the dilapidated car. _When transportation miracles are so cost effective_. Aziraphale knew this for a fact, having spent a few dire centuries (or whatever time was measured in before _Time_ was a real thing. It was certainly more like centuries than it was minutes, or felt that way) as a Miracle Quantity Surveyor. He'd done a lot of surveying of a lot of quantities without ever really finding out what that meant. But he'd also - by osmosis or some similar process - picked up on the fact that big miracles were things like raising the dead and doing odd _rather unnecessary, one would have thought_ things to the seas. Transportation miracles barely registered.

" _Pennies_ , miraculous pennies," he muttered huffily, wrinkling his nose at the smoking engine.

The joke however, as he may have been tempted to say having spent time in America, was very much on them. Their attempt to stop him from performing 'frivolous' miracles had necessitated him performing the rather substantial miracle of blocking off an entire stretch of road.

Although, it seemed that the miracle hadn't worked quite as it should have. Aziraphale frowned, and strained his ears towards the unmistakable sound of wheels rattling down the road towards him.

_"Fat bottomed giiiiiiirls, you make the rockin world go round..."_

First he thought, "Is that Vaughan Williams?"

Then he thought, "Oh."

And finally he thought, " _Of course_."

An impeccably kept antique Bentley rolled up beside him, and its owner hopped out with a grin. He was dressed in a navy boiler suit, oil slicked artistically across the sleeves in what was surely some sort of sigil, and had large, dragonfly glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose.

"Heard you were on the market for a mechanic."

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. "Did you now?"

"Well... Saw. Observed. Was aware of the fact that –“ he waved a dismissive hand in the air, “I've been keeping tabs."

"Have you now?"

"Yeah," Crowley spun a spanner around his fingertips, "Well, now and since you arrived in East Germany. Been waiting for a moment to make my -"

"Unnecessarily melodramatic -"

"Impeccably timed and _most helpful in actual fact, Crowley, my dear boy_ entrance, thank you very much."

Aziraphale rolled his eyes and gingerly kicked the Trabi's front tyre. "So essentially, you've been stalking me."

"Oh, don't be stuffy with me, Angel, no. I've been taking entirely authorised advantage of Hell's psychic mechanism that goes Beep Beep Beep when an angel's down on their luck. It went Beep Beep Beep, I checked, I arrived. And I fully intend on misusing office stationery to help you." Crowley said the whole thing with a furrowed brow and slightly petulant pout.

Aziraphale sighed and leaned against the side of the Trabi. "That's very kind of you, thank you, I -" Crowley made a warning noise at the back of his throat, "No, I mean _not thank you_ , and not kind of you. Bad, diabolical of you, I shudder at the wiles of the evil one I - I'm sorry I'm so grumpy, it's just so -"

"Cold, damp, shite?" he gestured towards the Trabi, "Falling to bits?"

"Yes, it's certainly not the best made of -"

"You know I'm not talking about the car."

Aziraphale ran his hand down his face. "Yes, yes it is rather, isn't it."

Crowley perched on the bonnet of the Bentley and folded his arms. There was a crease down the centre of his forehead. "What are we doing here, Aziraphale? I'm supposed to be stirring up bullshit, but the bullshit here is already so overworked that it would make the resulting bullshit cake _incredibly dense indeed_ , I -"

"Something's coming to a head. I need to stick around just a while longer."

Crowley blinked a couple of times behind his glasses. Then nodded slowly.

"Yeah. I feel it too. For what it's worth, those lower down are getting a bit flappy about the collective _feeling_."

Aziraphale smiled softly. "That's... Somewhat comforting."

Crowley tried and failed not to smile back. Then, he slapped his hands on his thighs.

"Right... Mechanic...ing."

He thumped the roof of the Trabi, then stepped back as it spluttered back to life. (He curated the spluttering carefully. No self-respecting Trabi let itself be seen in public without a good old smoker's cough.) He lowered his glasses. "My lot aren't as tight on the log-book." He winked. "Fancy a lift back to wherever it is you're bunking in a _proper car_? I can arrange it so that your balancing act of flimsy metal and craft glue is on the drive when we get there."

Aziraphale smiled and nodded. He slid into the passenger as one might an old and favourite pair of slippers. It was warm in there.

Crowley was right at home on the perilous roads of East Germany, swearing like a trooper, swerving like an Olympic grade swerver, and ignoring every road sign like an IT consultant who _really isn't keen on when the phone makes that funny noise._

_"Ohhhh, we'll keep on trying... Tread that fine liiiiiiine..."_

Aziraphale gestured towards the radio. "Is that one of your friend's? What's his name, Jerry... Eddie..."

"Freddie, yeah," Crowley said with an odd thickness below the lightness of his tone. "Unreleased as yet, sent me the demo."

He shifted in his seat.

"Well it sounds positively -"

"Think he should hurry up and release it myself," Crowley said gravely.

Aziraphale didn't ask.

The Trabi was, of course, parked outside the modest house (though there wasn't really any other grade of house at that time) that Aziraphale was staying at, with the three dents that had previously occupied the bonnet ironed out and the previously smashed left headlight not so much as scratched.

Aziraphale nodded approvingly instead of saying thank you, and Crowley nodded appreciatively back.

"I'll be seeing you then," Crowley said, leaning his torso (yes, all of it - habits of a snake et cetera, et cetera) out of the window with a little wave.

"Yes, I expect so. Knowing you I shall have many a wile to thwart."

"Oh, you'll be knee deep in thwart, don't you worry about that, thwart galore, knickerbocker... Thwartly." Crowley paused and frowned. "I think I'll stop talking now."

"Very wise." He raised his hand. "Goodnight."

"Night. Don't let the harpists bite."

Aziraphale watched as the Bentley was swallowed by the expansive road and the darkness.

He skirted around the Trabi, admiring Crowley's handiwork. He'd done an excellent job. It appeared to be in the best possible condition that such a car could be, which meant that it would break again within the week. The perfect balance. He'd even worn away some of the faux leather on the steering wheel, Aziraphale noticed when he peered through the front window.

Then something else caught his eye.

Dangling from the wing mirror was possibly the most ornate air freshener that had ever been fashioned. It was a silver serpent, with burning amber eyes, coiled around a sword that may or may not have been flaming. It hung from a silver chain, and smelt of hot cocoa. Aziraphale smiled.

The next time the two saw each other, the Berlin Wall was falling.

\---

"You did look excellent with that sledgehammer."

"What, rugged, sexy, destructive -"

"Righteous. Worthy, strong and righteous." Aziraphale looked straight ahead as he said it, a prim look of self-assuredness on his face,

If Crowley ever did such a thing, he would absolutely be blushing right about then.

"Shaddup," he mumbled.

\---

**Novelty telegram, (c.2000)**

**This reproduction of a typical c.1890s telegram may fool the casual observer, assuming that the casual observer is illiterate. The content is of a deeply modern nature, containing abbreviations commonly associated with “text speak” and contemporary profanity.**

**While novelty items are common, novelty items with such a jarring blend of accuracy and lack thereof, are uncommon and deeply curious. There is also a simple charm to the item, which appears to have both a sense of ironic urgency, and to be deeply personal.**

\---

c.1895, A Spooky Set of Rooms, London

Of course Crowley would choose rooms with such a perilous staircase, _of course_ he would. It was most intelligent really, in terms of killing two birds with one stone (which Aziraphale condoned only in the metaphorical sense). Crowley could conduct his dark deeds in his home, and if his home conducted some dark deeds of its own accord – well all the better. Aziraphale should perhaps consider installing some sort of shoulder massaging device in the bookshop.

(He would not be doing this, both because such a device would not be invented for another century or so, and because he didn’t want to actually encourage people to come to his shop. Any good deeds that occurred there were, he was somewhat ashamed to admit, merely collateral damage. Or rather collateral healing, he supposed. This was in much the same way that Crowley didn’t actually want to fling people down those stairs of his. Aziraphale gave him far too much credit sometimes. He just liked the look of the place, tall and teaming with ivy, dark and imposing. Dare he say spooky.)

He panted his way up the rickety stairs, which were singing an agonising choral medley of creaks and splinters. The nervous fingers of his right hand were sporadically clutching at the bannister, his left was shoved deeply into his pocket, where the telegram lay.

// SHIT CREEK NO PADDLE HELP PLZ

CROWLEY//

(Crowley had been sowing the metaphorical seed of text speak for millennia, starting when he scribbled “TLDR” on an early manuscript of Homer’s Odyssey, which he was somewhat offended to discover had been rudely ignored. He condoned rudeness in general terms, but not directed towards himself – that he found deeply impertinent. He was also an early and enthusiastic proponent of creative swearing. His proudest achievement would not come until the early 2000s, when in a fit of genius he whispered the phrase “bus wanker” into Damon Beesley’s unsuspecting ear.)

Aziraphale knew what all those words meant separately, but they became somewhat puzzling when placed together in quick succession. He believed he got the gist though, and the gist he got was that “help” would have sufficed.

Crowley had summoned him for help only a handful of times over the millennia. Once, when in snake form, he’d managed to tie himself into a knot and had used up his miracle-performing energy for that day by putting a fly in every bowl of soup in the Western hemisphere. Once, when he’d come across an unfamiliar word in a Sanskrit manuscript that he couldn’t identify and was _driving him_ _absolutely fucking bananas._ Once, for advice on what to get Hastur for the Christmas holiday office party that both conveyed his deep hatred and would not get him discorporated. (In the end, he went with a pink and cream knitted jumper for his frog that read “Head Sweet Head.” He missed the joke.)

So Crowley’s summons were not generally of the most urgent nature. However, they happened so infrequently that the pool wasn’t really wide enough to constitute a sample. This was compounded by the fact that he hadn’t heard from him in decades – since 1804 to be precise, when he’d sent a memo informing him that he was planning on “taking a rather long nap” and warning him not to “wait up”, whatever that meant. For these reasons, Aziraphale was focusing not on the past but instead on the present, and on trying not to unduly panic.

Until, that is, he bustled through the door of Crowley’s rooms and found panic to be the entirely correct reaction.

Death was, by the fabric of his very nature, everywhere, always and eternal. But one did not reach 5800 years of age without developing the ability to sense when he was closer than usual. He was close. He was really, very, incredibly close.

And Aziraphale’s light luncheon of beef sandwiches, potato salad and port really, very, incredibly close to making a reappearance.

“’ziraphale…” Crowley hissed through gritted teeth where he was laid out on the sofa, “Might need a hand with some…” a shuddery breath, “Paperwork.”

His glasses were discarded beside him on the floor, and between them and the door lay a trail of bloody, sodden clothing – two white gloves, a white shirt and a navy waistcoat. Aziraphale entertained in his mind for a moment the possibility that the items belonged to someone else, then cast a horrified glance over Crowley’s body and admitted to himself that while in general terms, angels were supposed to be optimistic, on this occasion, to be so would be _simply absurd._

(He pushed aside, for now, the thought that to be optimistic that blood belonged to a poor mortal instead of a demon was probably more concerning than his ponderings on morality in general. He wouldn’t think about such things until much later, in a nice warm bed in a Sussex cottage.)

There was a large gash running from Crowley’s left shoulder right down to the centre of his abdomen, and two puncture wounds below that, all spilling blood at an alarming rate and not looking inclined to stop. He was covered in a thick layer of sweat, his hair falling over his eyes, and his jaw was set into a hard clench. Aziraphale’s hand found his mouth as a gentle gasp escaped from his lips.

“Oh good _lord_ , Crowley what on earth has –“

“Fix… first… Please…”

Aziraphale blinked. “Yes…” he could see Death now. He was hovering in the corner. Crowley was trying as hard as his strength allowed to glare at him through pain-slitted eyes. “Yes of course.”

He knelt beside Crowley and swept his sweat-sodden hair away from his face. Scales were beginning to creep up over his shoulders, from where they were blossoming along his back – a sure-fire sign that he was losing control. Aziraphale joined him for a second in glaring at the looming figure in the corner. “Don’t even try it,” he said coolly. The whole of London and several bordering counties felt a shiver run through their spines.

Then he got to work.

Healing the skin was child’s play, as was knitting together the organs – Crowley probably wouldn’t even have noticed if he hadn’t, he didn’t tend to use them much, but he liked to do a job properly.

It was the blood loss that caused the most problems. Blood _was_ necessary, not in the way that human blood is exactly, but certainly important, carrying with it a sort of supernatural essence that kept beings such as them ticking along. Rather like engine fluid, if such a thing had been on the market at that point.

It was an intricate process. Aziraphale first performed a series of transportations on the blood he could see in the room, guiding it back into Crowley’s system. Then, he turned his hand to the blood he couldn’t see. Unfortunately, it appeared to be sloshed across almost the length of London, and remote miracles were far more arduous than the act of moving oneself from Point A to Point B.

He swallowed hard, and shuddered.

It didn’t even matter that much, in the grand scheme of things. Hell’s body distribution office was undoubtedly slow, dark and _damp,_ and the paperwork less than a thrilling read, but a demon was hardly a demon (nor an angel an angel) without a few discorporations under their belts.

But still.

Seeing Crowley die was simply unthinkable.

_Unacceptable._

Crowley groaned and shifted under his palm.

Death leaned in to get a better look.

Aziraphale bit his lip. His eyes slid shut. Feather quiet, a dust particle of a word, a dust particle of a prayer.

_“Please.”_

When he opened his eyes, Death had gone and Crowley’s eyes were open. Bleary, but bright below the mist.

Oh.

Well that was.

Oh.

Aziraphale sat back on his heels, letting his hand slide from Crowley’s forehead.

“Oh.”

He said eloquently.

“What?” Crowley asked breathily, through a throat that sounded like it had been subjected to a thorough rub down with sandpaper. He struggled up onto his elbows.

Wordlessly, with the look of a deer trapped in what would soon be called headlights, Aziraphale pointed towards the sky.

“Oh.” Crowley concurred. He looked up, with an expression that was half confusion and half suspicion. “Oh indeed.”

A beat passed, within which had a pin been dropped, it would have sounded like a cymbal crash.

“So…” began Aziraphale, attempting to talk himself past the strangeness that had just occurred. “How did you find yourself in such a state?”

Crowley was still looking at the sky. His eyes were significantly mistier. Aziraphale touched him on the shoulder.

“Crowley?”

He jumped, and blinked twice. “What?” He shook his head. “Yeah, what, what did you say?”

“I asked how you got in such a state.”

“Ngk,” he replied with a shrug. He was now looking rather determinedly at his lap. “General… demonry. One finds themselves in a scrape sometimes.”

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. Crowley tapped his fingertips on his knees.

“Y’know how it is. Wile… wile… wile…”

There was a pungent smell in the air. Aziraphale wrinkled his nose.

“You’re lying.”

Crowley’s eyes slid shut. He tipped his head back against the armrest.

“Wile… wile…”

Aziraphale stood and lifted Crowley’s feet. He slid in beneath them and folded his hands across his ankles. “What happened?” he asked quietly.

Crowley was silent and still for a moment longer. Then, pony and trap slow, he opened his eyes and raised his forefinger to point at them. Aziraphale frowned questioningly. He shrugged, and it was trying admirably hard to be nonchalant.

“Someone got a glimpse. Someone with tailcoats and a tall hat and a _very nice dagger in a very nice holster.”_

Aziraphale’s eyes widen, as he felt something very wet and very thick well up in his chest.

“Oh, _Crowley_ , my dear, I am so sorry –“

“S’not your fault. Granted, they are a bit weird.”

He bit his lip. Then reached down and picked up his glasses from the floor.

Aziraphale sighed solemnly. As soon as they were on Crowley’s face, he reached over and removed them.

“Not with me,” he whispered. “Never with me.”

Crowley’s breath caught in his throat. The same wet feeling that had afflicted Aziraphale had found him too.

Then he smiled. It wasn’t entirely sad, but it wasn’t quite happy either.

Aziraphale smiled back. It wasn’t entirely sad, but it wasn’t quite happy either.

“…ta.”

(A hundred and thirty years or so would, of course, pass and Crowley would sometimes still wear his sunglasses with Aziraphale, but only a little bit for reasons of insecurity and mostly because they looked _fucking cool_.)

A moment passed, then Crowley sat up, swinging his legs down from where they were rested on Aziraphale’s lap. He yawned and stretched, vertebrae cracking like a campfire.

“Was the first time I’d been up in decades. Nipped out for some breakfast, never got the chance… obviously.” He stood up and shook out his legs, then turned down to Aziraphale with as suave a smile as one who has just avoided certain death can reasonably manage. “Care to join me?”

Aziraphale smiled, and it was a real one.

“It would be a pleasure.”

\---

Crowley was looking thoughtful, and most pertinently, he was looking upwards.

“She would have saved anyone you know. Not just me.”

Aziraphale looked at him. He looked at him for a long time, and it was a soft look.

“No,” he said quietly, “I don’t think She would.”

\---

**Metal key, Date Unknown.**

**This object has proven difficult to date, but the charm is somewhat timeless. It is easy to come under the false impression that our appreciation for novelty is a new phenomenon. It is not – this key (undoubtedly antique) is carved into the shape of a rather lovely little duck.**

\---

c.10 BC, Maybe Israel, Maybe Not, Either Way There’s A Fuck-Ton of Sand

Crawly was fairly certain that the journey would be better made in snake form – slower, perhaps, although perhaps not, because she could make herself into a very big snake indeed if she so wished. It would certainly be more comfortable. Scales, she had found, did better in blistering sun than skin, and even after four thousand years or so, she’d never quite got the hang of legs. Too many… angles, entirely unnecessary if you asked her. Perhaps that was why humans had proven themselves to be so confusing. Form shapes nature, as Someone was fond as saying, and the human form was utterly _baffling_.

But, people were, at that time, even more wary of snakes than they were at the best of times, news of Cleopatra’s little stunt still raw in the collective consciousness having blown in on the (very warm, she thought bitterly) wind from Egypt. (“God, it was MAD,” Crowley would drunkenly exclaim into a tankard of something vinegary and alcoholic somewhere near Stratford-Upon-Avon a few millennia later. “I mean of all the ways to go - felt sorry for the bleedin’ snake, meself.” 

“Go on…” a man with a pointy beard would say lowly, sharpening his quill.)

It may, to the inexperienced demon, have been considered a positive to have humans wary around them. But the seasoned demon - rosettes, employee of the month awards and smiley-face-on-sticker-charts-galore – knew that quite the opposite was true, for the simple fact that humans were so wonderfully _useful._ It’s far easier to whisper in somebody’s ear when they’re not bolting five miles in the opposite direction.

And snakes didn’t tend to get served at inns. Crawly loved a good Inn.

So, she was trudging across the desert, on feet that she couldn’t entirely claim to understand, under the sweltering sun. Ordinarily, of course (although perhaps ordinarily is the wrong term in this particular case, because Crawly found herself in this sort of situation more frequently than most) she wouldn’t be making the journey manually. But she was doing everything she could to remain nice and cosy under the radar, certain that a recent event involving a traveller, watching a couple of arseholes from a tree , and playing dress-up as a Samaritan would get her a _thoroughly slapped wrist_ from the Dark Council. She couldn’t just _leave_ the bastard, could she? And besides, she’d whispered the time and place of a dog race into his ear as she’d left. Surely that counted for something.

She was supposed to be meeting someone about something that was due to Happen in about a decade’s time. The capital “H” in “Happen” was the only thing she had been given any clarity about. She hadn’t even been given a location, just allowed to Know where she was supposed to go.

She squinted up at the crystalline sun and put one sinking foot in front of the other. The sand hadn’t dared get between her toes, but she was deeply annoyed with it anyway. The sky, washed red like a Doom painting, appeared to be buzzing.

She would be walking all day, she Knew.

The thing that is often forgotten about deserts is that they are only sweltering heat traps during the day. At night, they become silent oases of bone-deep cold that shivering and teeth chattering can only dream of scratching the surface of. (Crawley had often wondered what exactly She was on when She came up with such a thing – Crawly was project managing a few lightyears east of Andromeda at that point – but had learned to keep such questions to herself.)

It was night by the time she spotted the first sprawling tendrils of civilisation and she would happily have bent reality for someone to invent the space heater _far more speedily than they were supposed to._

She shuddered her way into the first inn she saw with rather the grace of a malfunctioning wind-up toy soldier, ignored the front desk, and dropped cross-legged in front of the fire that was crackling tantalisingly in the corner. She pulled her robes around herself and dedicated herself to practising her best scowl, so that she could use it to its full advantage on whoever it turned out to be that had summoned her.

“Crawly!”

She blinked, and whipped her head around. Behind the desk that she’d ignored was a familiar face. The only truly familiar face she ever saw, and it was beaming at her. Then, it took in her appearance, and took on a look of grave concern.

“Goodness gracious my dear b-“ Aziraphale checked himself. “My dear, you look about ready to discorporate, what on Earth have you been doing to yourself?” 

“Having a right old jolly time,” she mumbled glumly, cocooning herself tighter in her robes. She glanced upwards. “Good to see you.” 

“And you. Although to see you like this...” he glanced around the small room, clocking only an old man dozing in the corner, and snapped his fingers. (Not that people worried about such things in those times as they came to in later centuries. With the smaller and more concentrated population, miracles were like competent tradesmen - rare, but most could boast of having come across at least one.) Crawly felt a warmth spread outwards from her chest, running down through her limbs to her extremities. She groaned contentedly. 

“Ugh,” she grunted, “You’re an angel.” 

Aziraphale’s mouth quirked upwards. “Yes, rather.” 

Crawly extracted herself from her coiled and cross-legged position and cracked first her hips then her back. (And in the process mentally inventing the humble glow-stick. That one took her some time to get around to.) “So this is what you’re up to these days?” 

Aziraphale nodded, folding his hands behind his back. “For now, yes. It’s most worthy, I’m told, taking in wayward travellers. And the wayward _caterers_ are no small bonus.”

Crawly smirked. “And how worthy is taking in wayward demons?” she asked innocently, examining her nail beds. 

“Not especially,” he replied flatly, “Consider it a worthiness holiday.” 

“Oh, very wise.” She was too warm now, if anything. She fanned herself with a gathered section of robe. “Wouldn’t want to succumb to burnout.” 

“Precisely. Is that what you are currently then? A wayward demon?”

Crawly nodded. “Gotta see a guy about a thing. Or a girl about a thing. For all I know, a camel about a thing, detail wasn’t a feature of the memo.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Hmm.”

He trailed back over to the desk. “Is that a single for the night then?”

“Uh…” Crawly hadn’t given it much thought. Hadn’t given much thought to anything but the two opposing ends of the temperature scale for a decent while. But sleep… sleep sounded good. “Yeah. Yeah, if you’ve got one free.”

“Of course.” (It was true on that occasion, but wouldn’t have mattered anyway, of course. Adding rooms to buildings was child’s play.) He reached beneath the desk and produced a key. It was an ornate key, because of well… Aziraphale’s personality, and carved into the shape of a lion. He quirked his lips and ran his hand across it, and it was quite suddenly no longer a lion. It was a duck. He handed it over. “I remembered you had something of a… fondness.”

Crawly eyed it and tried very hard to scowl. She failed, and smiled fondly then rolled her eyes.

“Room 333? Is there a joke in there somewhere.”

Aziraphale pursed his lips primly and quirked his head to the side. “Perhaps. You’re sort of half a demon. All the anatomy, but also really rather ni-“

“Yeah, alright, shuddup. Just show me where to go.”

“Left corridor.”

“’kay.” She glanced down the corridor, then back. “I’ll uh… see you in the morning, I s’ppose.”

“Indeed.” He gave a little wave. “Sleep well.”

(Aziraphale did see Crawly in the morning. He looked out of the window and saw her in the courtyard, with a small child on her shoulders and another chasing her with what looked to be a makeshift sword.

He smiled.

Really rather nice.)

\---

“I liked that inn.”

“Get much custom? It was a bit plonked in the middle of nowhere.”

“Oh, no. That’s why I liked it.”

\---

**Pair of daisy “chains”, c.2000**

**One is a chain, one is an attempt at a chain. Clearly items of great sentimentality, having been so beautifully preserved for such a length of time. Perhaps one was the creation of a child, the other an adult, or perhaps the matter is merely one of skill and lack thereof.**

\---

In The Beginning, The Garden of Eden

It was _most_ trifling. The briefing hadn’t covered it at all – remiss, as the briefing had lasted for more than seven thousand years with only a short lunch break, at which the catering was utterly _dire_.

How was he supposed to thwart a wile… when the wile had been so polite?

Surely thwarting politeness was deeply counter-productive.

He frowned, from where he was hiding rather inconspicuously behind some ferns, and observed the wile in question.

He had stayed a man once he had become one, slithering seeming only to serve an aesthetic purpose (how wrong he was, he’d later find out – it was very much the other way around) and wasn’t doing anything especially demonic. What he actually appeared to be doing was attempting to invent the daisy chain, attempt being the operative word.

Was he supposed to thwart arts and crafts?

Against his better judgement, he did what his instincts were _actually_ telling him to do (not even seven thousand years worth of very thorough PowerPoint slides could weasel the instincts out of such a strong-willed being as he) and wandered nonchalantly up to the wile – Crawly, he’d said his name was.

The nonchalance was poorly constructed. They were the only people (shaped beings) left in the garden, which while very beautiful, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in (which is why Crowley later invented the Pina Colada, which provided lots of things to do in other places with “Paradise” in their names). Aziraphale could hardly have been embroiled in any other task, having experienced what he believed they called a “major cock-up” in his primary position as guard of the Eastern Gate. But Crawly didn’t seem in the kind of mood where one notices such things. He seemed in the kind of mood where one is concentrating very hard at something they really weren’t made for. In fact, Aziraphale could even see the end of a forked tongue poking out from between his teeth.

It would have been endearing, were he not a diabolical creature of the underworld.

(“Oh, it was _incredibly_ endearing,” he’d say over a Frappuccino, once they’d been invented.

“Prefer the diabolical one,” Crowley would mutter back, and then he’d steal some of the cream with his spoon.)

He hovered awkwardly above the black-robed figure for a moment then cleared his throat.

The figure’s head snapped up. And _God_ , those eyes. They really were _golden_.

“Oh, ‘lo, ‘ziraphale. Care to join me?”

Aziraphale blinked. He hadn’t exactly been expecting that. It crossed his mind that he should most certainly be deeply suspicious, but it was rather difficult when the object of suspicion had returned to his seventh attempt at poking a daisy stem through a hole.

“Yes. Thank you.”

He sat cross legged and arranged his robes across his lap. Without looking up from his project, Crawly spoke.

“Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong – or not _free_ , that’s the USP of the humans innit, anyway, you know what I mean – but I have the sneaking suspicion that you’ve been wondering the same thing I have.”

“Oh?” Aziraphale ran his thumb nervously along his lip. “What would that be then?”

Crawly was silent for a moment, lips pressed together in thought. Then, he wafted his hand through the air. “Form… shapes… nature.” He moved onto his next daisy. The chain wasn’t so much as a chain as a ball of “Well Tried” stickers. “Except, what about when it doesn’t? What about when a thing… does a thing… that doesn’t match its description?”

Aziraphale’s eyebrows quirked up.

“You mean…” he swallowed, “When a demon seems to have done the right thing?”

The ghost of a smile began to bloom on his face. He nodded slowly. “Or an angel the wrong thing. Or, I dunno… both the neutral thing.”

Aziraphale’s teeth grazed his bottom lip. “Yes. Yes, you were right. I had been wondering.”

“Because I don’t know about you, but I suspect that your lot and my lot are rather like two identical hotel rooms painted different colours. You’ve probably got better dental actually, but anyway – the training our lot got was pretty much “angels equal enemy, vanquish them in the name of Bad.” But I don’t want to vanquish an evil act, now do I?” Crawly’s eyes had turned deep and inquisitive.

“Nor I a good one.” Aziraphale replied, looking down at the grass.

“So what takes precedent? Form and nature or what they do with it?”

Aziraphale shrugged, a mouthful of air in his cheeks. “I was coming to you with the very same question, my dear boy. And our dental is… rudimentary.”

“Hng,” Crawly said sympathetically. “Questions, mind them. They’ll bite you on the arse sooner or later. Or bite you on the Grace of God, to be precise.”

Aziraphale suddenly felt very awkward, and slightly sad, and he couldn’t stop thinking about Crawly’s eyes and how warm they looked. “Well,” he said, as neutrally as he could manage, “Ineffability should never be questioned.”

Crawly huffed. “Ah yes, the ol’ catch-all. Doesn’t exactly help when we find ourselves in quandaries like this and She,” he tilted his head towards the sky, “DOESN’T APPEAR TO BE LISTENING.”

They waited for a few seconds. A cricket chirped, and it didn’t sound much like God. Crawly went back to his daisy chain.

“The training also didn’t cover,” he muttered, “What to do when you stumble across an angel who seems like a bloke you might want to hang out with.”

Aziraphale’s heart performed an odd little flutter. He picked a loose thread off his robes (which should have been impossible, given the very nature of Heaven’s tailors). “Oh. Found one of those have you?”

“Hmm.”

Crawly was looking at him, and smiling amusedly.

“…I should think that would be alright.”

“Oh really?” Crawly asked, as innocently as a child with his hand in the cookie jar. “Why’s that then?”

“I’m not sure at this precise moment…” he picked at a tuft of grass. “But I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

“Keeping one another in or out of trouble…”

“Yes.” Aziraphale nodded, and glanced quickly at Crawly. “That should do nicely.”

“Hmm. Good. I’ll have to let that particular angel know.”

A beat passed. Then, Crowley held up his ball of petals and stems.

“Fancy a go?”

A smile began to creep up through Aziraphale’s being. It was a deep smile, that started in his chest and radiated upwards, and its eventual confinement to his face seemed deeply insufficient.

“To keep you out of trouble, you understand.”

Aziraphale ended up producing the world’s first successful daisy chain.

\---

“Idiots, really, weren’t we?”

“Well…” Aziraphale pondered this for a moment, “In general terms, yes, but to which specific event are you referring.”

“Pfffft,” Crowley expelled a hot air balloon’s worth of breath from his cheeks. “Six thousand years’ worth, really. Look at us, we knew, that early on that we had more in common with each other than anyone up there or down there and yet…”

“We got there in the end.”

Crowley smiled at the floor.

“Yeah. S’ppose we did.”

\---

“So,” Aziraphale asked, strolling through the lobby with his arm looped through Crowley’s. “Who wins the bet?”

“Oh yeah. The bet.” Crowley had forgotten about the bet. Six thousand years of age, he couldn’t be expected to remember everything. He saved his memory for important things, like every character on the end credits of “Golden Girls” and the exact shade that matches Aziraphale’s eyes on a Dulux colour palette. “Who do _you_ think won the bet?”

“Neither of us, I suppose. The only conclusion to be drawn is that we have lived rather puzzling lives.”

Bet or no bet squirreled in his memory, Crowley couldn’t very well argue with that.

“That we have.” he smiled. Then, he cast his gaze across the room, and it transformed into a puzzled half-frown. “Eh, is that –“

“Gentlemen!”

An impeccably dressed gentleman (who looked very much as though he should be carrying a cane) was sauntering towards them with a smile on his face.

Aziraphale’s brows knitted together. “Remi-“

“Vincent, my name is Vincent. I work at this fine establishment,” the man said quickly.

“Vincent…” Crowley said slowly.

“I’m told you’re the generous providers of our newest curiosities. We had the most _excellent_ fun examining them and making our educated guessed. Now tell me,” he asked confidentially, leaning in with a smile that was both angelic and devilish. “How did we do?”

“Now that would be telling,” Aziraphale said quietly, at the same time as Crowley said, “Shit.” rather less quietly.

Vincent chuckled.

“I’m almost glad in a way. I’m willing to bet that gentlemen such as yourselves have stories that the likes of them…” he cast a hand sideways, sweeping across the bustling patrons of the museum, “Can only hope to imagine.”

Aziraphale followed his sweeping hand with his gaze, “Gentlemen such as ourselves?”

But Vincent appeared to have gone.

Crowley blinked.

“Weird bastard.” Then after a pause, “Was that-“

“Yes, I think it was,” Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “And you know him too?”

“It appears that he uh…” he clicked his teeth, “Networks.”

Aziraphale, by force of habit, got a deeply righteous look on his face. He swiftly chased it away. “Well…” he mumbled, “Who are we to talk.”

A laugh like a stalling engine sounded in the back of Crowley’s throat. “No one at all, angel, no one at all.”

And as though proving a point, an angel and a demon went home to their cottage in the Sussex Downs, finished a bottle of wine, and whispered “I love you” to each other against the dying light of a sunset.

A little bit of Heaven and Hell melted away and the Earth continued spinning, and a poker dealer who _smiles all the time_ put Her cards face down on the table, and drummed Her fingers across them contentedly.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, my lovelies!!  
> A comment would make my little heart explode with joy.  
> Hope you're all coping okay - pop over to tumblr if you'd like a chat - I'm Wildenessat221b there too!  
> Take care and thanks again.


End file.
